


Organizing Feelings

by lenasmagic (dimensionhoppingrose)



Series: Weblena Month 2019 [9]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Mentions of Mental Illness, Organization, Some angst, Weblena Month 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 21:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20264548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimensionhoppingrose/pseuds/lenasmagic
Summary: Webby has discovered bullet journaling. No one is safe. Or Lena and Violet aren't at least since she drags them down the rabbit hole with her.-Weblena Month Day 12: Diary-





	Organizing Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Don't even tell me Webby wouldn't rock bullet journaling.
> 
> This is a little more Weblena-lite than I meant for it to be, but I got really into writing Violet's conflict and I don't want to take it out so XD

To say Webby  _ liked _ organization was an understatement. Her McDuck research board spoke for itself. Color coding, lists, charts, graphs, she loved it all.

So of course, she nearly lost her mind when she discovered bullet journaling.

“Look how neat and organized it is! All the  _ colors _ ! An index! It’s amazing!” She was scrolling through pictures on her phone, shoving particularly good ones in Lena’s face.

“Seems great, Pink.” Lena was only half paying attention. She didn’t share Webby’s obsession with organization, and although the pages  _ were _ very pretty, she didn’t really see the appeal.

She should have known better, she realized later, when Webby invited Violet over and presented both of them with journals — a purple cover for Lena, and a blue one for Violet. She had a pink one for herself. “We can do this together! It’ll be fun!”

Violet and Lena exchanged weary looks, flipping through the journals — dotted pages with numbers at the bottom to indicate what page they were on. They were, admittedly, very nice.

“I’ve heard good things about bullet journals,” Violet said thoughtfully, turning the journal over and tilting her head. “It could be a good exercise.”

“Isn’t it just a fancy planner?” Lena asked, frowning. It wasn’t like she had much going on that required a planner to keep track of.

“It can be for anything!” Webby said excitedly, getting her phone out to start showing Lena pages again. “Like, see, you can use it as a planner, and a mood tracker, and a money tracker, and—”

Lena could already tell she wasn’t going to get out of this. “All right, all right, I’ll… figure something out.”

Webby squealed, bouncing up and down, and produced a set of colored pens from god-knows-where. “Let’s get to work!”

Lena didn’t get much work done that first day. She spent most of it on her phone, looking at pages online and trying to find something that would be useful for her. She didn’t have school or extracurricular activities like Violet, or anything she thought was worth keeping track of, like Webby. Sure, she had kept a journal before the Shadow War, but that had mostly been something for her to write in where she could keep her private thoughts away from Magica. But this was different. What did she have that was worth keeping track of…? 

If Webby was honest, she wasn’t completely expecting Lena to take to this whole idea the way Webby had. Lena had a habit of trying to breeze through everything without any thought or plan — why would she want to keep a journal that involved organizing her life? But Webby hadn’t wanted her to feel left out. Besides, it was always something else she could draw in. So when Lena didn’t get anything done that day, Webby wasn’t really surprised. Violet had taken easily to it, creating a pages to cover the next several months, due dates for papers and projects, her violin lessons, and so on, all in neat little block writing, as well as a list in the back of books (both magical and regular) she wanted to read.

“You gotta schedule in more fun time, Vi,” Lena said idly, fiddling with a pen.

“I’ll take that under consideration.” She frowned, tapping a day on the next month’s spread idly.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated is kind of our thing around here,” Lena pointed out.

“True. I suppose compared to some of the things you’ve all been through, it’s quite simple.” Violet tapped the day again. “It’s my thirteenth birthday.”

Webby lit up. “Oh! That’s awesome, we definitely need to do something for it.” She grabbed her journal to write the day down. “Why’s that complicated?”

“Well, I’m turning thirteen, and my parents want me to do a Bat Mitzvah. We had the same argument last year — traditionally girls have their ceremony at twelve, which is part of the reason I didn’t want to do it, because it seems rather odd that boys get another year of their lives as kids while girls are expected to be adults early—”

“Um—” Lena raised a hand. “Words?”

“Right, sorry. A Bat Mitzvah is a coming of age ceremony for a Jewish girl — the male equivalent is Bar Mitzvah. It’s meant to signify that the child is an adult, and therefore responsible for their own decisions and, well, a lot of other things. Papá and Papi are aware that I don’t necessarily subscribe to the idea of Judaism, but as I’ve grown up practicing it and learning all the traditions, it’s important to them for me to do this.”

“Do you  _ really _ need a ceremony to become an adult?” Lena asked, raising an eyebrow. “You basically already act like one.”

“I made that argument as well. But their religion is important to them. We’ve been arguing about it several months already. Considering my birthday is next month, I believe I’ve wone the argument again, but… I don’t really enjoy feeling like I’ve let them down.”

Webby shuffled closer to hug Violet. “Hey, I get feeling like a failure,” Lena offered, “but your dads think you’re the best thing to ever happen to the world. Even if you don’t do all of… this… I don’t think you’re ever going to let them down.”

“I suppose.” Violet shrugged, raising an arm to return the hug. “I know they’ll support me no matter what I do, but… like I said, it’s important to them. And if it was just for them I don’t think I’d mind so much, but the religious importance around the ceremony would make me feel… wrong if I went through all of it without believing any of it.”

“Have you told them that?”

“Not quite in such a specific way, no,” Violet admitted. “They know I’m not as committed to Judaism as they are, but I don’t think they realize how detached I am.”

“Well, tell them that. They love you. They’ll understand.”

Violet tilted her head, thinking it over. “I suppose. It’s either that or have the argument every year until I turn eighteen. Which sounds rather unpleasant.”

“You’ll be a lot happier if you work all this out,” Webby agreed. Lena looked at her journal, at the still mostly blank first page. Part of her really admired Violet’s ability to just be blunt and say what was on her mind. Not that Lena was at all shy, but she could never talk about the things that  _ mattered _ . Not the way Violet did.

Webby walked Violet out when Violet’s dad came to pick her up. Lena stared at the pile of colored pens before grabbing three — purple, blue, and black — and beginning to write.

* * *

At least a month passed before Webby saw the purple journal again, and even then she was pretty sure it was an accident — the corner of the journal was sticking out from under Lena’s pillow. Lena herself was helping Mrs. Beakley put laundry away — her one assigned chore that Webby suspected she enjoyed far more than she ever let on, if only because she got to needle Beakley a bit. 

Webby was cleaning the loft when she saw the journal, and paused, surprised. Lena hadn’t seemed that enthused over the idea of bullet journaling — Webby had figured it would become something for her to doodle mindlessly in, like her sketchpad. But she didn’t  _ hide _ her sketchpad.

_ She’d be so mad if she found out you looked. She hides it for a reason _ . But why? What couldn’t she tell Webby, of all people?  _ A lot of things probably. You know what she’s like _ .

Just… a look, she decided, carefully pulling the journal out. She was dying to know what use Lena had found for it.

The first page was a surprisingly neatly written index. Lena’s usually, loopy handwriting almost mirrored Violet’s small handwriting almost perfectly. That was fascinating. Could Lena imitate other people’s handwriting?

_ Focus. _

She skimmed the index and several things immediately jumped out — there was a sleep tracker, a section, for dreams, and a section for feelings and habits. Webby flipped to the sleep tracker without thinking. The page was a neatly drawn grid with normal sleep times written across the stop, and the days of the week drawn down the side. The key at the top indicated that the hours slept were colored in purple, a black square at the beginning meant she’d had take something to sleep (there were a lot of those) and a blue square at the end meant she’d had a nightmare (there were a lot of those, too).

The dream tracker page was split into several boxes, each with different dates through out the month, while the edges were decorated with doodles of stars and moons, eclipses, shadows, and one little pink bow up in the very top corner. Webby was about to move on when she caught her name in one of the boxes — a nightmare from last week.

_ Magica was controlling me, but no one else knew. She got into the mansion in my body and started attacking everyone still acting like me because she knew they wouldn’t hurt  _ _ me _ _ . Webby tried to talk to me and _

The sentence cut off very abruptly, and the last word looked shaky, as if Lena’s hands had been shaking too hard to continue writing. Webby checked the date, and realized she remembered that dream — she had woken up to Lena sobbing into her pillow, refusing to talk even when Webby climbed into her and cuddled into her. She hadn’t pushed the subject. She knew Lena’s nightmares were rough on her. And she had a feeling she knew how that sentence was going to end, given the way Lena had clung to her.

She flipped to the feelings and habit trackers. The habit tracker was first — a two-page spread with swirls and stars and circles on the edges and written down the length of the first page. There were bars drawn across both pages, indicating how often she did a certain thing. “Said something mean about myself” was by far the longest bar, Webby noticed with a slight heartache. “Forgot to eat” was also longer than it probably should have been. Webby made a note to herself to keep an eye on that before flipping to the next page.

The feelings tracker was similar to the dreams tracker, with the page split up into boxes and each box dated. There was an index at the top with a list of things that Lena knew for sure triggered her panic attacks and flashbacks — lights, large crowds, shadows, open spaces, nothing Webby didn’t already know. Next to the date in each box was a space left open for Lena to write her moods in for that particular day — the range seemed to be from OK to Depressed, which surprised Webby. Lena  _ knew _ she had depression, and anxiety, and was probably coming around to accepting that she had PTSD, but she never used the words. There were more OK and Slightly Anxious days than there were Depressed, she saw with some relief. She started reading one of the Depressed days without really thinking.

_ Nightmares. Didn’t sleep last night. Couldn’t talk to W about it. I was supposed to go to the movies with her and HDL but the idea of leaving the house made my feathers itch. She knew I didn’t sleep and accepted it when I told her I was just tired. Maybe I should move out of the loft. I don’t think she’s gotten a full night’s sleep since I came back. _

“Oh, Lena,” Webby whispered, tears in her eyes.  _ Couldn’t talk to W about it _ . Why would she think that? Did she really think she was that much of a burden.

The next two days were both marked as Anxious. Webby read the second one.

_ Nightmares. Don’t think I woke up W this time. Boys were being loud at breakfast. I snuck out without eating anything. CC noticed, of course. _

CC. Webby frowned for a moment before giggling. Colonel Crumpet. Right.

_ She made me eat more at lunch and gave me a granola bar before I left. Spent an hour in De’s room. That helped a bit _ .

De. Della, Webby assumed. A quick skim of the rest of the boxes revealed that a lot of them were in the same vein — expressing her anxieties, the bouts of worthlessness, the complete apathy that made it hard for her to even get out of bed…

“Found a new book?”

Webby squeaked, jumping. At some point she’d sat on the floor against Lena’s bed, completely engrossed. She hadn’t even noticed Lena come up or flop down on the bed so her head was near Webby’s, her chin in her hand. She didn’t look or sound mad, but Webby still felt very much like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, handing the journal back. Lena took it and stuck it under her pillow.

“It’s…” She hesitated, dropping her head to rest it against the bed. “I don’t know. It’s not okay, but I know you weren’t being purposely nosy or anything. I couldn’t remember if I’d put it away or night when Tea Time called me for laundry duty.”

“I shouldn’t have looked.” Webby sighed. “I just…”

“Got curious?” Webby nodded. “How much did you read?”

“Sleep times, dreams, habits, and feelings.” There was no point in lying. “Do you… really think you can’t talk to me about things?”

Lena was quiet for a long moment. “I… know you’re willing to listen. But sometimes I don’t know what to say. Sometimes the words just… get stuck. Or I feel stupid saying them. I mean, how ridiculous would it sound if I woke up one morning and just said, ‘I can’t get out of bed’?”

“I don’t think it would,” Webby argued, frowning. "Put a mark on the being mean to yourself bar.”

Lena laughed, hollowly, lifting her head and getting a pen out of the nightstand. “I guess that’s one perk of you knowing. It’s hard to be self aware sometimes.”

“You’re trying, though.” That was impressive in and of itself. “Is this why you won’t go to therapy? Because you don’t know how to talk about it?”

“Sorta,” Lena admitted, eyes downcast. “I don’t know, Webs. It’s complicated. That’s what this thing is for.” She waved a hand at the journal. “I can’t say the words out loud, so I write them.”

“You know how to write them down, at least.” That gave Webby an idea. “Hey, can I see that for a second? No snooping, I promise, just an idea to add to the index.”

Lena blinked. “Uuuuuh sure?” She handed the journal over along with the black pen, and Webby flipped to the index, very,  _ very _ carefully writing “Permitted For Webby” under the feelings tracker page.

“If you don’t know how to talk about it, write it down, and leave it for me to see. That way you can talk about it without really talking about it, and I’ll still only know what you want me to know.”

Lena took the journal back, considering it for a moment. She sat up, drawing her legs up to rest the journal against as she got out the pink pen and flipped to a new page, scribbling for a long few moments. Webby waited anxiously, bouncing.

Lena finally turned the journal around after what seemed like forever.  _ Permitted For Webby _ was scrawled across the top over two pages, with little pink bows and friendship bracelets decorating the edge of the pages as a boarder. She’d already drawn a box for the day, and written one bullet point in it.

_ I don’t deserve Webby _ .

Webby gently took the journal away and crawled up onto the bed, hugging Lena tight. “Of course you do,” she said, smiling into Lena’s shoulder “Silly.”


End file.
